Saturday, 25 April 2009

• What Do Women Want? Ask One - Don't Generalize

  Ever notice how conversations about "how to treat a woman" proceed?
  

  First, a man will say "I treat women with respect." Another man will pipe in with "Women really want us to lead." A third man will agree, saying "it's our duty to honor a woman by protecting her."

  About then, without being asked, a woman will pipe in: "Women don't want you to lead!" Then another woman will respond, "Yes, we do. We need men's strength and leadership."

  Someone else (sometimes a man, sometimes a woman) will try to be diplomatic and make a compromise: "men should protect women, but they can't control women."

  So they all grudgingly agree that it is chivalrous for a man to protect a woman and honor her by being sensitive to her, but wrong of a man to demand a woman to obey his every whim. Thus, the solution reached is not one of equality but rather one of temperament: the man can be in charge as long as he is nice about it.

  The problem with this conversation is that it treats 50% of the population of the world as if they were of a single mind and demeanor.  It says that roles in a relationship should be determined by supposedly universal decrees rather than looking at what works for each individual relationship. 

  The very question "what do women want," in fact, dehumanizes women.  Why treat women as some huge single unknowable obelisk?  Why not turn to a woman and ask her, "what do YOU want, as an individual?"  Some women will say they want to be an equal.  Others will claim to thrive under the authority of a strong man.  But until it is a question to the individual and not about women as a group, you will never get to know the person you love.

  The same thing is true for men.  The statement "this is what men should do" limits and stifles individual strengths and weaknesses.  Why not turn to a man and ask him "what do YOU want, as an individual?"  Some men will say they want to be an equal.  Others will claim to thrive under the authority of a strong woman.  But until it is a question to the individual and not about men as a group, you will never get to know the person you love.

  That is the danger and sickness inside chivalry or any other term meant to encapsulate some code of proper conduct between the sexes.  A man who says he honors a woman, but claims that all women at their hearts want the same thing, is a sick person.  He is cut off from not only the true individuality of his lover, but of himself because he forces himself into a role based on the role he forces her into. He does not let the relationship develop naturally.
  

  For some relationships, perhaps even for the majority of them, the truth is similar enough to the "code" that the damage will never be noticed.  But for the millions of men and women whose abilities and desires do not conform to the decrees of "chivalry," it is a crippling illness that will keep them all their lives from discovering who their partner is and who they are themselves.

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